Well, it’s happened again. This time it’s the new breed of Internet radio to blame. And my teenager of course.

This month, Ms 15 racked up $550 in data charges in one bill. When I politely enquired about it, she put on her thinking face for a moment, and surmised: “I think I’d better stop using Pandora on my phone”.

You think?

Pandora and Spotify are popular online music providers, and they really are awesome, but hours of streaming music will chew through your data plan like no one’s business.

I’ve been with my mobile provider since my first Motorola in the mid-90s. I’ll be sticking with them, but I’m finally booting my kid off. I’m switching her over to an amaysim UNLIMITED plan. She has her own phone (my old iPhone) and doesn’t need to be on a contract. Her stepdad has been using amaysim for about six months and gives it the thumbs up.

Comparing mobile phone plans

Here’s how the plans compare:

Current plan for teenager – $49/month

Calls and text – $450 included

Data – 1.5 GB

amaysim UNLIMITED plan – $39.90/month

Calls and text – unlimited

Data – 4GB data

It’s a no brainer. I should have done it 4 billion gigabytes ago.

If you’re in the market for a new and improved mobile phone plan, check out amaysim UNLIMITED. This is not a sponsored post, but it does contain an affiliate link, so if you click through from here you’ll be helping me pay off my daughter’s last mobile phone bill. Why thank you! (Also be sure to read all the fine print to make an informed choice, because I’ve only given basic plan details above.) And right now amaysim is also having an end-of-financial-year sale and offering 20% off the first month for new customers if you order in the next few days before 30 June. (Read the terms and conditions.)

Spotify vs Pandora

If you’d like to find out more about Spotify and Pandora, here is a good article that compares them.

A mother’s revenge

I recently discovered that because my daughter downloaded Spotify on my computer, all the music choices I make come up under her name, and all her friends can see what “she” has been listening to. Today, I think she’ll be listening to Delta Goodrem. Mwahahahaha.

Has your child (or you) ever racked up a shocking mobile phone bill?
Do you have any devious ways to embarrass your teenager?

At one of the Suns games K decided to sms to enter a competition to win a Suns playing jumper – she sent off $180 worth of sms’s (and didn’t win the jumper !!!) She didn’t see that she had to pay and thought it was part of her free allocation. She could have bought her own jumper for half that price. She had to pay because there was no way I was going to pay that !
The bill last month showed $105 worth of data charges for her – but she can’t think what it could be – we have to go to Optus to find out but she will have to pay this as well !
Enjoy listening to Delta – maybe you could find some ABBA or Bay City Rollers to listen to as well !!!
Have the best day and know you are not alone in this !!!
Me

Oh my goodness. I wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that story. Good luck with getting to the bottom of the latest excess data mystery – I am not sure how much info Optus can give you on that. In my experience, it’s always video or music – Youtube, Pandora or Spotify. When will they learn?

My kids are all on pre-paid. I refuse to do post paid, and they accept it if it means they have a mobile phone. It’s funny because a lot of the time they don’t get credit, but they don’t seem to care! As long as their friends can contact them and they’re hooked up to the home wi-fi they’re happy – having capped home internet is a must!

I don’t think my teenager is like the others, because she’d love some Johnny Cash 🙂 The amaysim is no contracts, so I guess that’s much the same as post paid – I think I would be very annoyed if I couldn’t contact her because she’d run out of credit 🙂

Thankfully we have never had that problem, Miss 13 is on the $29 Woolworths Prepaid plan, that gives her $500 in calls/text and 5 gig of download and lasts for 45 days. If she blows it before her 45 days is up, she lives without until the next top us is due. Guess who does not run out anymore! hehe 🙂

I had no idea Spotify could suck up so much data. We use it at home, but that’s through our wifi on our home plan.
Stories like this make me very frightened of the day when my girls graduate to mobile phonesKatyberry recently posted..Spreading the Misery

With three teens and one almost-teen in our house, our rule is pre-paid only! Trying to keep track of four mobile allowances (not to mention my own) would be a nightmare, so everyone gets the same pre-paid option each month, and they do chores when it’s time to top up.If they run out of credit before the end of the month, well, there’s always the good ol’-fashioned landline! 😉

This is why my kids don’t have data on their phones at all, they can have data when they have an income and are paying their own bills. It doesn’t seem to be bothering them, there’s often wi-fi around that they can tap into which seems to satisfy Ms14’s needs and Mr16 hardly ever uses his phone anyway.

If only we lived somewhere with decent coverage so i could use one of these deals. And yes I have had a daughter do this to me! She is nearly 19 and paying her own bills and is surprisingly much more careful with her phone bill 😉Annaleis from Teapots and Tractors recently posted..{WW} Toodyay Railway Park

One great way to make sure your kids bill doesn’t sky rocket is to “limit mobile data usage” on the phones settings. Depending on the phone it’s usually in the phones “settings” menu under “usage”. You usually have the option to “alert the phone” when the data limit is reached (probably not so effective with a teen daughter though!) or stop the Internet connection all together once the limit has been reached.
I always set the limit meter a little lower than my data limit so I know when to slow down my Internet activity!
Hope this helps 🙂Your Kids Online recently posted..Cyber Safety – The Cyber Playground vs The Physical Playground

Aha! I think I should change us ALL over when the plans are up. We had a major Spotify issue once and now I do tend to check up… silly Optus sends emails to the TEENS to tell them they are at 80% when they need to send it to ME!!

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